


Clash

by supurbangothic



Category: Fight Club (1999), Fight Club - All Media Types, Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Genre: Fluff, I blended the book and movie to suit my whims, M/M, Post-Canon, SO MUCH FLUFF, love:the tyler durden variety, rated m because fight club, read that first or don't it might make sense idk, sequel to unholy, shameless descriptions of brad pitt's form, taking my own liberties w canon, tyler is an ass but he gives a fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 19:09:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13841154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supurbangothic/pseuds/supurbangothic
Summary: {Sequel to Unholy} 	Living with Tyler again is different than it was on Paper Street. There are times when he’ll look over at me from a pristine, new storefront window and pout his lip, and he’ll say, “If you love me…” I scowl and shake my head. This isn’t about love, Tyler. You know this.





	Clash

**Author's Note:**

> This took a long ass time so please enjoy it.

Living with Tyler again is different than it was on Paper Street. There are times when he’ll look over at me from a pristine, new storefront window and pout his lip, and he’ll say, “If you love me…” I scowl and shake my head. This isn’t about love, Tyler. You know this.

We don’t fight as much anymore. There are still days when he’ll come in the door with a glint in his eyes, and I look up from my coffee and know he’s about to tackle me and break our table. Tyler punches me once, twice, and we’re grappling in the rubble. He laughs that unhinged, boyish laugh when I spit blood in his face and drive my skull into that crooked grin. Every two months or so, we go out to get a new table.

That’s another difference on my part, going out.Tyler mocks me endlessly for becoming a hermit without him, but I just shake my head and smirk. The hole in my cheek winks at him. Once you’ve lived with Tyler Durden, the rest of the world became a mottled shade of grey. Single-serving instances and people that wink at you and call you ‘sir.’ All waiting for a revolution that would never come. Tyler knows this, because I know this.

I need him, but he needs me more. We’ve proved that much.

In other ways, I can’t help comparing the feeling of our life to how it was then. I don’t move out of the one-room with rattling windows. When Tyler complains, I tell him that he doesn’t  _ need  _ a bedroom. He’s not real. Tyler argues that this is discrimination.

So maybe it isn’t the life that feels similar. So what? Living around Tyler,  _ with  _ Tyler and only Tyler, let’s me feel like I can finally fucking  _ breathe.  _ I’ve been sleeping, if the mirror Tyler insisted we get is anything to go by. The bags under my eyes are lightening, and the fog of insomnia has burned off to a distracted haze. I find myself spacing out at the breakfast table more often than not, contemplating our life and Tyler’s role in it. How he’s changed since coming back. I startle when he snaps his fingers in front of my nose.

“Go back to sleep if you’re still dreamin’, pretty boy.” I swear that Tyler’s eyes are darker than they were before he died. Softer.

“I’m fine, Tyler. Just taking some time to wake up.” His face goes twisted then, just a quirk of his lips and I can tell he doesn’t believe me.

“Hm,” he hums, stepping around the table and laying his hands on my shoulders.

“What are you-”

“Don’t you lie to me, pretty boy. Ever. Don’t forget, we share the same head.” He’s growling against my ear but his voice and his hands are too warm. Tyler is rough edges and fiery eyes. Since he came back, though, he’s different. Tyler Durden is not  _ caring,  _ but he cares. I know this because  _ Tyler  _ knows this, and I don’t understand it at all.

Before I can respond, he’s grabbing his jacket and out the door. The shell of my ear tingles with the memory of his touch.

Tyler doesn’t come back. Even when I talk to myself (really talk to myself, like normal people do. It’s a disconcerting experience.) calling his name, he doesn’t answer.

“Tyler, you’re a figment of my imagination, I know you aren’t actually gone! Get back here and explain yourself, damnit!” I think back to when I first realized who Tyler was. Who I am.

_ Tyler, what the hell is going on? _

_ I think you know. _

What do I know?

Tyler cares. Tyler needs me. Tyler came back, different than before. Tyler isn’t real. I’ve been sleeping.

_ This isn’t about love, Tyler. _

Oh, but when hasn’t it been?

I need something to do to keep myself occupied, so ashamedly I slip back into old habits. The woman at the furniture store shakes my hand and calls me ‘sir,’ and the new coffee table and armchair are already tucked comfortably into the apartment when I return home. I spend the rest of the evening burning cigarette marks into the fabric and creating spiderwebs out of the glass tabletop. When the sun sets, I order Chinese delivery and try to fall asleep, attempting not to think of Tyler off building bombs somewhere. When I finally manage it, I have no dreams.

It’s dark when I wake, except for the soft light off the street, coming in through the window. He’s standing by the door, unmoving in a way he never is, as if waiting for something. Half asleep, I reach out, hand stretching hesitantly into the dark. It feels different this time, he carries no suitcases. He’s not leaving. I can feel his eyes on me, considering. I sense him more than I see him start walking again. Like a screaming tendon, relaxing as the muscles are drawn together.

He stubs his toe on the coffee table and curses before staggering the last few steps and falling into bed beside me. A thousand questions build in my chest, but then his arm goes around my waist and wild hair tickles my neck. I can feel his heartbeat against my back, and I’m gone.

I wake again without any covers, the morning sun and October chill seeping through the stained glass of the filthy window. I start to sit up, only to find a pair of arms locked around my waist. Not for the first time in my life, the dream was not a dream, and I’m at a loss. I twist carefully in Tyler’s grip onto my other side. It occurs to me that in all the time we’ve been together, I’ve never seen Tyler sleep.

Cornflower eyes blink open, and I startle but remain otherwise unmoving. For a moment there’s a pause as I hold my breath. There is no guided meditation for this situation. There’s just Tyler and I, the morning sun coming through the window and landing in his hair. His eyes search mine, and I wonder what he sees there.There’s a spark of decision on his face, and he’s leaning forward. My breath hitches in my throat.

Tyler buries his head in my shoulder and groans.

“You bought a new fucking coffee table but you couldn’t get curtains?” He doesn’t look up, but his arms tighten around me. Last night I had a thousand questions, but they all seem insignificant now.

“Tyler, ghosts can’t get hangovers.”

He groans again but I can feel him smile against my neck. The same smile from the day we first met. For a few brief moments, he sat in a perfection of his own making. Shadows and sticks in the sand. A one-room apartment. Wild blond hair that’s soft under my fingers. Cornflower blue eyes.

“You’re beautiful,” I tell him. I’ve never said it before, although we both know it to be true. Saying it makes it more real. “You were wrong, Tyler. I never wanted to be like you. I just wanted you.” He doesn’t move but I can feel his jaw twitch. I can’t stop talking. “Project Mayhem, Fight Club, Marla; I didn’t really give a shit about any of it. It was you. Ever since we met, I just couldn’t leave you alone. You’re like a drug, Tyler.” For a terrifying second, he does nothing. I’m half expecting him to get up and leave, and not come back. The thought makes my very blood turn.

The press of lips against my skin is gentle, so soft I almost startle with it. He continues to lay kisses up my neck and along my jaw. When he reaches my ear, he nips the shell and I jump. Tyler laughs.

“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t ya? You’ve watched buildings explode and I still make nervous. When did you get to be such a sap?” he jabs, and I roll my eyes. Never mind that the buildings were  _his_ fault. I’ve always been like this, at least in regards to him. When Tyler touches me, I’m electrified. Like one of those dead frogs that dances if you shock it. Tyler moves me.

He smirks, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I remember. Your thoughts the Parker Morris building were-” I silence him by connecting our lips. I don’t want to think about that right now, think about how the first time Tyler’s eyes faded from piercing blue was the moment right before his body hit the floor and vanished. I can tell he understands by the way his hand goes to my hip and stays there. He squeezes. He’s here. He came back twice, and I don’t quite know what that means. I do know that he is warm, and hard, and as real as anything can be. Real enough for me.

Real enough for me to miss his body heat when he stands from mapping the curve of my lips to put on a pot of coffee. My eyes track the way his body moves, and I can’t help but smirk. This isn’t Marla. Marla never looked like Tyler, defined lines and sharp curves and scarred to hell. Tyler never made Marla coffee.

“She didn’t drink coffee. And even if she did, I wouldn’t have offered.” He doesn’t look up from placing the filter into the machine. “You bought the coffee.”

“Technically,” I remind him, leaning back in bed and pulling the covers around me, “I bought everything else in the house, too.”

“Agree to disagree, pretty boy. Split personalities are still people.” He pauses, and then he does turn to me, a grin stretched across his face and his eyes wide and amused. “We should start a support group!”

Now it’s my turn to groan. “Shut up. Don’t tease me before I have my coffee, that’s just not fair.”  _ But since when have you given a shit about fair?  _ Tyler laughs as the coffee machine goes off, and I close my eyes as the sound of cups being filled and the smell of dark roast filters around the apartment. The end of the bed dips and I sit up, taking the stained mug from Tyler’s hand and burning my lips on the rim. When I glance up at Tyler, he’s staring at me with a look I know too well. It’s a dangerous look, the same one he used to level at his space monkeys before proposing his newest cheme. It’s the gleam in his eye right before a fight, and I tense,expecting him to leap across the bed and spill my coffee. Instead, he crawls forward, cat-like, until he’s close enough to whisper in my ear.

“Can I tease you yet?”

My breath stutters in my chest and I almost choke on my meager mouthful of coffee. Yes, living with Tyler is different than it was on Paper Street, but I’d be a filthy liar if I said I was in mourning. Quite the contrary, I think as Tyler takes my mug out of my fingers and places it on the table beside our bed.

“Y’know, if you love me…” He doesn’t have to finish his sentence. A thousand questions are answered in the shape of his mouth, and this time I’m not afraid to look. We surge forward at the same time, meeting in the middle with a painful clash as we’ve always done, and I can hear his laughter in my head. We were living, on Paper Street. But now, finally,  _ finally,  _ we’re  _ alive.  _


End file.
